We have just read a dispatch from the St. Petersburg correspondent of the liberal-bourgeois *Frankfurter Zeitung* dated August 8 (21), reporting that the congress of zemstvo and municipal figures, which, according to the decision of the July congress, was to convene immediately upon publication of the Bulygin project and which had already been scheduled for the end of August, will not take place. Why, do you suppose? Because the tsar revoked his decree to the Senate on August 6—the decree of February 18, 1905!{86} The correspondent adds: "This utterly inexplicable (?? Editorial board of *Proletarian*) cowardice of the zemstvos is causing general astonishment in political circles here, inasmuch as at such a moment as the present one, people were not inclined to expect such flabbiness from the zemstvos. Therefore, the news transmitted by me is still not absolutely trusted and is for now regarded with a wait-and-see attitude." We long ago predicted that the government would have no difficulty in winning over the liberal bourgeoisie to its side and forcing them to "recoil from the cause of revolution."

*Proletarian* No. 14, August 29 (16), 1905

Printed from the text of the newspaper *Proletarian*, collated with the manuscript